Things aren’t always as they seem. Take pancreatic cancer, for example. In up to one in 10 cases, researchers have documented a peculiar characteristic. Some of the pancreatic cells appear to have lost their identity. It’s as if they forget what they are. “This is very bizarre. You see pancreatic cancer, which usually somewhat resembles the original organ, losing those features and basically becoming akin to skin or esophagus—these other very unrelated tissues, ” explains former Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory…
A new approach enables dressings that adhere firmly to the skin at body temperature, but can be removed easily and painlessly in combination with a cold pack. The dressing adheres firmly to the skin or wound site without restricting the patient’s freedom of movement. It can be removed easily and painlessly by cooling, e.g. with a cold pack. In addition, no adhesive residue sticks to the healing tissue. TLB has been commissioned to exploit this pioneering technology and offers wound…
Application deadline for grants is July 15, 2024. The SETI Institute is announcing the launch of a pioneering grants program dedicated to advancing technosignature science. This first-of-its-kind initiative aims to support innovative research addressing criti-cal observational, theoretical, and technical questions in the search for technosig-natures that could provide evidence of past or present extraterrestrial technology. At the heart of this groundbreaking research is the Allen Telescope Array (ATA), a world-class instrument known for its capabilities in the search for extraterrestrial…
– without animal experiments. For someone suffering from brittle bone disease, life is fraught with complications. The slightest misstep, a seemingly harmless fall or even one false move can be all it takes to leave them with a broken arm or leg. And chances are this will happen repeatedly, because they were born with an inherited genetic defect that makes their bones extremely brittle and is often associated with physical deformity. Notable sufferers of brittle bone disease include German author…
…as a gauge of the coming sea level rise. Ice-Ocean Interactions: The History Book of West Antarctica’s Climate. Of all the polar regions, the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is the most sensitive to a warming ocean due to climate change. This is already causing a long-term ice sheet melt, and the question is how fast that melting process will take place. It may be that this enormous mass of ice already passed the tipping point, with irreversibly fast melting. This…
Part Ⅱ: From single phase to multiple phases via adjusting V content. In recent years, high-entropy carbide ceramics have received extensive attention and become another research focus in the high entropy materials field, which are also known as multi-component carbide ceramics. The multi-component carbide ceramics not only inherit the special properties of high-entropy materials brought by complex compositions, but also keep the advantages of transition metal carbide ceramics as a kind of ultra-high temperature ceramics (UHTCs), such as high melting…
Filamentous cyanobacteria buckle at a certain length when they encounter an obstacle. This was discovered by the research group of Stefan Karpitschka, group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and professor at the University of Konstanz. The results provide an important basis for the use of cyanobacteria in modern biotechnology. Cyanobacteria are one of the oldest and most important life forms in the world – for example as they took an essential part in producing the…
More than “on” and “off”: German Research Foundation funds new Emmy Noether Group at Philipps-Universität. How do numerous signals pass through a few channels? A new Emmy Noether junior research group at the University of Marburg is investigating how a limited number of G proteins can trigger a multitude of cellular reactions. Pharmacologist Dr. Hannes Schihada has received 1.9 million euros from the German Research Foundation (DFG) for two three-year funding periods to set up his research group. Cells have…
Fatty liver disease, SLD for short, is increasingly causing failure of the liver as a vital organ. A team led by researchers from the Institute of Metabolic Physiology at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) in collaboration with the German Diabetes Centre (DDZ) and other partners has now discovered that a saturated fatty acid in blood vessels leads to the production of the signalling molecule SEMA3A, which closes the ‘windows’ in the blood vessels. This hinders the transport of fat from…
Quantum entangled photons react to Earth’s spin. A team of researchers led by Philip Walther at the University of Vienna carried out a pioneering experiment where they measured the effect of the rotation of Earth on quantum entangled photons. The work, just published in Science Advances, represents a significant achievement that pushes the boundaries of rotation sensitivity in entanglement-based sensors, potentially setting the stage for further exploration at the intersection between quantum mechanics and general relativity. Optical Sagnac interferometers are…
Technology eliminates optical-electronic conversions, holds promise for revolutionizing edge intelligence. Researchers have demonstrated a new intelligent photonic sensing-computing chip that can process, transmit and reconstruct images of a scene within nanoseconds. This advance opens the door to extremely high-speed image processing that could benefit edge intelligence for machine vision applications such as autonomous driving, industrial inspection and robotic vision. Edge computing, which performs intensive computing tasks like image processing and analysis on local devices, is evolving into edge intelligence by…
An international team of scientists has developed a novel way to experimentally produce plasma ‘fireballs’ on Earth. Black holes and neutron stars are among the densest known objects in the universe. Within and around these extreme astrophysical environments exist plasmas, the fourth fundamental state of matter alongside solids, liquids, and gases. Specifically, the plasmas at these extreme conditions are known as relativistic electron-positron pair plasmas because they comprise a collection of electrons and positrons—all flying around at nearly the speed…
With applications in clothing, construction and food storage, the new textile reduces heat from both the sun and thermal radiation from nearby buildings. This year has already seen massive heatwaves around the globe, with cities in Mexico, India, Pakistan and Oman hitting temperatures near or past 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit). As global temperatures and urban populations rise, the world’s cities have become “urban heat islands,” with tight-packed conditions and thermal radiation emitting from pavement and skyscraper trapping and…
UC Riverside-led research has potential to unlock terahertz processing power. An international team led by researchers at the University of California, Riverside, has made a significant breakthrough in how to enable and exploit ultra-fast spin behavior in ferromagnets. The research, published in Physical Review Letters and highlighted as an editors’ suggestion, paves the way for ultra-high frequency applications. Today’s smartphones and computers operate at gigahertz frequencies, a measure of how fast they operate, with scientists working to make them even faster. The…
To avoid exposure to the harsh Mediterranean summer conditions, some seeds delay germination until after the hot and dry days. Using the plant model Aethionema arabicum, Zsuzsanna Mérai in the group of Liam Dolan at the Gregor Mendel Institute of Molecular Plant Biology (GMI) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) has for the first time described a light-induced mechanism that establishes secondary seed dormancy in summer. The findings were published in Current Biology. Plants are highly versatile organisms that…
Invasive infections such as sepsis require immediate and targeted treatment. Experts from the Fraunhofer Institute for Interfacial Engineering and Biotechnology IGB and group partners have succeeded in establishing a reconceptualized detection principle that can make a crucial contribution to saving lives through fast, ultra-accurate pathogen identification. They have been chosen to receive the 2024 Stifterverband Science Prize for their efforts. According to a recent study, sepsis — also known as blood poisoning — claims a human life in Germany every…
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